Good or bad, does it matter?{HP}

Only after he laid down the second layer of runes, did he approached the altar and, lifting the black skull with magic, he concentrated his attention on the book: "Such a terrible thing and in such a magically weak world… if someone had enough magic to use it, this world would have come to an end much earlier…"

"Will you destroy it? "

"No, I will not destroy it," the young man answered calmly with an undisguised grin, "Such a thing simply cannot be destroyed, but leaving it here… would be an insult to such a powerful artifact."

Such an answer, to put it mildly, shocked the Maledictus and for a moment she was even afraid that this thing had somehow influenced Severus or bound him to its will.

But Nagini quickly discarded these stupid thoughts, because this simply could not be true, and his gaze seemed weird to her as if he was trying to act strange knowingly.

Severus looked, as if he was enchanted, reached forward and took the book in his hand."An artifact with intelligence…"

As soon as these words flew out of his mouth, the writing was suddenly engulfed in black flame.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" and an incredibly powerful squeal filled with pain and despair echoed throughout the room, which died down after a few seconds, and there was no trace left of the book, "Huh…what a weak version of submission magic…."

Shaking off his hands, he looked up at the skull and began to study the runes imposed on it, as if nothing had happened a few moments earlier.

"And here I thought that something happened to you, you could have atleast told me of this." Although her voice sounded slightly dissatisfied, deep down she was very excited, because now, if this artifact was destroyed, it meant that...

"This is not the end," Snape said calmly, as if he had read her thoughts, although in fact he was simply interpreting the snake's emotions.

"But you …"

"My naive snake, why did you think that there could only be one such artifact?" He looked at her with a mocking smile, at the sight of which she sent him an image of a girl with puffed-up cheeks and a very angry face, "As my teacher said, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst …" twirling the skull in his hand, he added, squinting slightly and seeing a red crystal in it, "Interesting ... they were able to create such a miniature core ... even Godric could not do this, although ..." taking out a pocket watch from his wallet, he knocked on it twice and as soon as it swung open, a white cloud flew out of them, a few seconds later taking the form of a familiar old man with Chinese roots.

"Young man, why did you pull me out of the artifact, and in such a place….."

"Look, what do you see?" the Prince asked, thrusting the skull in his face, which slightly confused Li Er, but he still nodded and looked at the thing he had extended, and a slight surprise flashed across his face. "This... there is a soul in it, and it is very evil…"

"So it wasn't my imagination."

"Young man, where did you find this thing and where are we?" the old man asked, frowning as he looked around the strange room, the walls of which were covered with symbols unknown to him, and there was no point in talking about the energy of death floating in the air, but he had long since learned to fight it, even in the form of a soul.

"The lair of necromancers, — Severus answered calmly, as he squatted down, studying the runes on the altar of bones, "Hmm…..looking at all this, Godric completely beat them...besides the fact that the ligatures of the runes and the types that he chose to apply to the entire Hogwarts were many times more interesting and better, the consciousness that controls the castle was also created from scratch by him, while here they simply used the soul of a person, which was many times easier, less durable and very unreliable..." Unlike an artificial personality, the soul has an unpleasant feature, similar to "horcrux", to dissipate, albeit rather slowly.

At the same time, it was also worth remembering about human nature, because even having erased all memories, it will still be able to betray someday, having gained self-awareness, although this is quite unlikely, but such an outcome could not be ruled out.

Therefore, in his world, an artificial personality was very rarely used for the core, or they did without it at all, which was practised much more often.

And for his own, certain "templates" of personality-forming runes and a limited number and types of actions had already been invented long ago, which the Prince used during the creation of the house.

___

The Prince finished the inspection of the ruins rather quickly, in just half an hour, and he was even able to draw several rather interesting ideas that he was going to use for his home, but not now, but sometime in the future, when he found some free time.

In addition, Snape introduced a couple of his innovations into the core, because while magic did not enter it, the soul simply slept, so he could do almost anything.

The innovations concerned his status as an official necromancer, so that he could have access to enter the community at any time without resorting to methods similar to the one with which he got to this place, as well as access to the function of observing everything that happens in the community, and he did not forget to erase all traces of his stay in the castle.

Having lowered the skull back onto the altar, Snape turned his gaze to the old man, who was still thoughtfully studying the symbols on the walls.

"Found something interesting?" Severus approached him, and the old man pointed to a strange sign in the form of a star in a square, carved in each corner. "This sign was used in my time by a very powerful group of dark wizards…" and then, Li Er turned to the skull, "But… I didn't immediately remember this, because when they were already destroyed, I was about thirty, but I still remember one thing well, the skeletons of each of them were completely black and one of them even came after me at one time.

"Hm? And you studied it?"

"Yes, but I still couldn't understand how they did it. But thanks to such skeletons, magic passed through the body much better, allowing you to cast spells much faster, but in addition to this, the power of the released spell was also amplified, many in my time tried to repeat this, but no one succeeded," he sighed with a hint of nostalgia, looking at the Prince again, "I would recommend that you take this skull with you and study it, because if you …"

"I am not interested in such a method of amplification," the Prince calmly shook his head, and then took out his pocket watch again, "Okay, let's get out of here, there is nothing more to do here, and I hope to hear from you in more detail about these wizards."

The elderly wizard was a little surprised by such an answer, because every wizard was greedy for power, but he did not comment on it, thinking that the young man was one of those who did not want to modify their body in this way.

As soon as the old man returned to the clock, Severus took one last look at the skull 'Bone hardening... although... I can think about it…' and with these thoughts he disappeared from the castle...

***

On the way, not forgetting to look into the reserve, which, just happened to be on the territory of Romania, and having bought dragon meat, Severus returned to England, where he spent the rest of the day, as well as the next, adjusting the ritual, in addition to this, he also watched the dragon egg, which was supposed to hatch in a few days.

And on Sunday evening, he fulfilled his promise and treated all the "residents" of his territory with dragon meat.

Although it was inferior in softness and taste to that from his world, it was definitely several levels higher than the meat of the golden antelope.

And on Monday, Severus calmly returned to Hogwarts and continued to study and work, no longer thinking about any nonsense like the founders' hiding places and secret rooms, and the other children no longer bothered him much.

But in the main community of necromancers there was a very tense atmosphere, because only a Muggle would not notice that the level of death energy had dropped by almost fifteen percent, and the leader of the community himself was walking around, looking gloomier than a rain cloud.

After all, only he knew for now that their greatest artifact had disappeared, and the castle core, which was supposed to protect it, saw nothing, and this angered the man even more.

And even the "young talent" tried not to show off at all and not to catch the teacher's eye, because from the last time he came to him to ask a few questions, his bottom still hurt a lot, he even had to eat standing up and sleep on his stomach, but the worst thing was that not a single potion could help heal these wounds.

Xardas himself simply did not know where to start looking for the thief, because he did not leave a single clue, but what scared the man even more was that the thief somehow managed to temporarily disable the castle's core, which meant that he could return at any time, leave a couple of magic bombs and calmly leave.

And such a scenario scared him the most, so in order to minimize the chances of such an outcome, he strengthened the defense several times: adding constant patrols; replacing the guards at the entrance to the castle, and beheading the previous ones and turning them into undead, seeing how they calmly chatted, and some necromancer passed by them; but in addition to this, he ordered the core to scan the territory of the community every half hour and send him a report, and also write down all the wizards who entered the castle on a separate list and send it to him once a day.

He had one idea about who it could be, but if it turns out to be correct, he still will not be able to do anything to this wizard, because the difference between them was too colossal.

The man was sure that even if the entire community of necromancers gathered and attacked him en masse, they would not be able to defeat him, and even if by some miracle this did happen, the losses would be simply catastrophic and eventually they would come to an end, unless of course those who stood behind that wizard came for them first.

Therefore, all that was left for him was to hope that his worst fears would not come true and that the one who took the Grimoire would turn out to be the wrong monster...

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Just wanted to say, Thank you all.